


Freedom Comes on Two Wheels

by Isis_McGee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bikers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, First Dates, Fluff, Mentions of Cancer, mentions of drinking, mentions of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 01:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2713187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis_McGee/pseuds/Isis_McGee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not every woman on a motorcycle is the same, and that works out just swell for Nancy Fitzgerald and Layla Rourke</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freedom Comes on Two Wheels

“What do you ride?”

It was a common enough opening question at these rallies that Layla didn’t think anything of it when she heard it. It may have come out a little milder than she was used to hearing‒ so many of the women she met at motorcycle rallies boomed as loudly as their bikes did and they liked it that way‒ but her response was automatic.

“Harley. 87 FXSTC Softail,” Layla smiled when she caught sight of the woman who’d asked. She was pretty, olive skinned with a shade of dark berry lipstick on her mouth and wide eyes, and she looked sweet. Layla liked her already. There were other women in the organization who could be described as ‘sweet’ but for some reason, Layla never seemed to run into them; she was in a chapter full of women who’d used their motorcycles as shields so often that they had a hard time understanding where Layla was coming from even though they did mean well and they did try. But Layla was making a snap judgment, and she knew she needed to ask the other woman the same question before she could decide that they were best friends. “And you?”

“2012 XL883L Sportster Super Low. Harley, too, obviously.” Layla couldn’t help but look impressed; it’s a nice bike, and truthfully one of the newest ones she’s heard as a response in a long time.

“How long have you been riding?” Layla then remembered her manners. “I’m Layla Rourke, by the way.”

“Nancy Fitzgerald,” the woman responded, sticking out her hand and shaking Layla’s. “I’ve only been riding a couple years. This is the first bike I’ve had. It was a present to myself for getting my MBA.”

Nancy had told that story a number of times, it was clear. It was an explanation, but also a defense. But Layla’s life made it so she couldn’t begrudge anyone anything; at least, that was the excuse she gave. If anyone asked any of Layla’s friends, they’d say that was just in Layla’s nature.

"Well congratulations. An MBA is an accomplishment," Layla said. Nancy smiled.

"Thank you." It was sincere. "How long have you been riding?"

"Only a few years. The bike is so old because it's what I could afford." Layla shrugged. She wasn't ashamed. She still had a bike, and it was trusty. She did the maintenance herself and she was proud of what she'd been able to do with it so far. It took her where she wanted to go and let her feel what she wanted to feel; she wasn't concerned if it was as flashy as some of the bikes she saw people on. It seemed as though the women she was around most often didn't care either way, as long as Layla kept up and participated and paid her dues. They were all friends, whether or not Layla knew every single new item on the market or if she cared.

"Oh, I've heard that that bike is one of the new classics, actually," Nancy said.

"Really?" Layla asked. It was the first she'd heard of it.

Nancy nodded. "Yeah. The '87 models are supposed to be really sought after by collectors soon. Or maybe not soon, but somewhere down the line. Either way, it's a good bike."

"Thank you," Layla said, reassuring Nancy that she was taking it as a compliment and not just placating. The two women smiled at each other, neither seemingly sure where to go from there in the conversation. Then Layla's eyes caught on Nancy's necklace. "That's a beautiful crucifix."

Nancy's hand went up to the cross automatically at the mention of it. "Oh, I've had it forever. A hand me down from my grandmother."

"Are you...?" Layla trailed off. She wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject or what to actually say. So many people seemed to wear the cross as a fashion accessory at that point-- a bad habit that people had been doing to many other religions for years, Layla knew and was very conscious of after having been repeatedly told so. She didn't want to offend this woman she'd just met.

"Oh, yes," nancy responded, intuiting what Layla wanted to ask. It was the first time someone had asked about it at one of these rallies. "I know it's maybe a little taboo, or at leastnot something we talk about often at bike rallies, but, yes, my faith is important to me. It has to be."

Layla sighed in relief. "It's the same for me. I feel so strange bringing it up in settings like this, but I couldn't not compliment your necklace," she said with a nod towards the cross.

It was a lovely piece of jewelry, gold in color with whorls carved into the bars that caught the light and shone, on a thin gold chain so the inch high pendent showed off.

"Well thank you for noticing it." Layla murmured her recognition. "So, what made you start riding?" Nancy asked then. Layla smiled a little.

"It's a little bit of sad story, are you sure you'd like to hear it?"

“Do you want something to drink and maybe to sit before you tell it?” Nancy asked in the same tone. Both women’s mouths were quirked up, not fully acknowledging whether or not they were really flirting with each other.

“That’d be nice, yes,” Layla said. When Nancy’s half smile turned into a full one and she began to lead the way toward one of the tents with long white plastic fold up tables and hard metal chairs, Layla smiled fully too.

Layla thought that it should be strange that neither of them asked about what chapter they were in, where they called home, but that they had jumped right into personal question territory, but it didn't feel strange at all. It felt like she'd found a kindred spirit, someone who didn't want to bother with inane small talk about the weather or differences in their chapters, but someone who could recognize when another person was good and right for them and wanted to know everything about that person. It should have felt strange because Layla never seemed to find anyone else like that, but it just felt good to finally see there was someone else who wanted that. There was someone else who had that sort of faith in people.

"Do you want a beer or a coke or something?' Nancy asked, her uncertainty coming out in her voice.

"Just a water would be fine actually. I don't mind if you wanted a beer though, it's not like that," Layla answered. "And you don't have to get me anything, I can get it."

"No, that's alright. I want to," Nancy said as she shook her head and then she walked to the back of the line. Layla sat down at the end of a table and watched the rest of the crowd mill about, talking and laughing, more of them drinking foamy draught beers than not. They all sported the same color blue somewhere on their clothes and it was nice to be around so many women, even though they were all so different.  It took Nancy no time at all to spot where Layla had sat down and she held out the bottle of water for her before she sat across from her.

"Now, why is it a sad story? And you don't have to tell me, not if you don't want to," Nancy said.

Layla shook her head, "No, I want to."  She took a sip of her water. "I was really sick a few years ago. I had a brain tumor."

"Oh," Nancy breathed out. She looked stricken.  Layla waved a hand to ward off the sympathy.

"Had. I'm alright now. But I wasn't. I was basically on the verge of death, was ready to go and everything. I'd made peace with it, was using my faith to get through it when nothing seemed to be working. But somehow, that other shoe never dropped. No one could really explain it but suddenly when I'd had four months to live, that four months turned into six, then into a year, and then all of a sudden, the doctors said the tumor had been reduced. I was getting better.”

"That's amazing," Nancy said when Layla took a break. She took another sip of her water.

“The doctors said that it must have been one of the treatments kicking in late, but that doesn't really make any sense. It might have been a medical miracle, but either way, I was alive," she said with a shrug.

Nancy took a drink of her beer and had to lick the foam off her upper lip. She looked a little embarrassed as she did. “So what’s sad about this story? It sounds so happy.”

Layla tilted her head in a motion that conceded that point, but made clear she was going to qualify it as well. “Well, I had no idea what to do. I'd been preparing to die for so long I'd done almost everything I thought I wanted to. It seems silly, and almost awful, but I was almost sad that I was still around.”

“That’s pretty common though, isn’t it? I mean, of course you’re relieved, but it’s also got to be really hard, right?” Nancy asked. Layla nodded. Neither woman was conscious of the fact that all around them the conversations were vastly different, that women were catching up with old friends, that women were connecting between generations, that there was more shop talk about bikes than there may have been anywhere else in the country at that moment.

“It does happen, I just felt guilty that it happened to me. But I realized there were other things I wanted to do. I played it safe even when I thought I had a deadline. But I wanted to do something to remind me that I was alive."

“So you found a bike,” Nancy supplied.

“I found a bike,” Layla agreed. “Well, I found a guy with a bike. I realized I didn’t care about the guy, but being on the back of that bike was the first time it really hit me that I was still alive and that life could be great, you know? It reminded me that I wasn’t waiting to die. There’s just something about riding that makes you live right there in the moment, looking at life without a frame it’s‒”

“Freedom, in the best sense of the word,” Nancy interrupted. It was exactly what Layla was going to say. Layla smiled and looked at her hands.

“I’m sorry, I’m saying things every biker knows. Except I’m making it all about me,” she laughed in a self-deprecating way. Nancy shook her head, adamantly.

“I asked about you. It’s freedom but it’s different for every person.”

Layla looked up at that, almost shocked by how well Nancy seemed to understand her. “Yes, it is. So many people don’t seem to understand that.”

Nancy could see the shock and she shrugged. “I worked at a police station before‒ and during‒ my MBA. It’s hard not to understand freedom as something different for everyone.”

“You’re a cop?” Layla asked, nothing ‘almost’ about her shock that time. Nancy laughed a little.

“No, I worked as the secretary for the Monument Police Department in Colorado.”

“Monument? Isn’t that the town that‒”

“Had an attack on its one horse police department office by a serial killer who was trying to use the town to hide out? Yeah,” Nancy nodded. This must have also been a story she told fairly often if Layla could read her expression correctly. “It was scary. I locked myself in the ladies bathroom before I could think. I was the only woman who worked there.”

Layla wasn’t sure of what to say and Nancy toyed with her necklace. Then she laughed a little, but it came out closer to a sob.

“I could hear what was going on out in the office. It was terrible. The way I could hear that man screaming.” Nancy paused for a moment and then quietly continued. “I was just praying to make it through there and be able to leave that job. Isn’t that funny?”

This didn’t seem like part of the story that Nancy always told and Layla made a small shushing sound as she put her hand out on the table towards Nancy. Nancy was chewing her bottom lip as she looked up.

“I’m sorry,” she said and shook her head a little. “This was years ago, I don’t know why I’m getting so upset. I’ve told this story a thousand times.”

“Never after someone told you about brain cancer,” Layla pointed out. It was enough to get Nancy to really laugh and Layla felt like she’d accomplished something in the day, even if she did nothing else at all. It may not have been much, but it was something. Layla tried to think of something to change the subject back to happiness after the conversation had taken such a dark turn. “So why the motorcycle after the MBA? And what are you doing now that you’re out of that job?”

“I’m working for a company that does consulting for local small businesses in the Denver area now. The second client I ever had just opened up a second bakery in Colorado Springs,” Nancy said. Her pride was palpable.

“That’s great,” Layla told her.

Nancy nodded. “It really is. She makes the absolute best strawberry- rhubarb tarts. If you’re ever in Denver, you have to try one. It’s ‘Singer’s Sweetshop’ and it’s great,” she enthused, unashamed.

“If I’m ever in Denver I’ll keep it in mind.” Layla couldn’t help but smile and suddenly have an intense craving for pie. Blueberry, if she had her way.

“And the motorcycle was because I could. I had nothing stopping me and it seemed like a good enough reason to fall in love,” Nancy explained.  

And there was no way for Layla to argue with that. That was freedom and she found herself wondering if there was anything stopping her from finding that sort of freedom as well. She looked at Nancy’s smile and it didn’t seem as though there was.

She knew that women had begun firing up their bikes again‒ there was the thunderheads of the Harleys, the zipping hums of the Suzukis, the roar of the Hondas, and the big cat purrs of the Indians‒ but all Layla could hear was her own voice asking, “I know this might be too forward, but, Nancy, would you like to get dinner with me tonight? Like as a first date?”

Nancy’s eyebrows rose and Layla had a moment of slight panic.

“I’d love to get dinner with you tonight.” Layla’s panic abated. Nancy was standing up and she made quick eye contact with someone over Layla’s shoulder, another woman from her chapter, telling her they were heading out obviously, before she smiled at Layla, her teeth very white next to her lips. “But didn’t we just have a first date?”

All Layla could do was smile and happily nod.  

 


End file.
